MANAMA, Bahrain — More than 100,000 protesters poured into the central Pearl Square here on Tuesday in an unbroken stream stretching back for miles along a central highway in the biggest antigovernment demonstration yet in this tiny Persian Gulf kingdom.

The protesters, mostly members of the Shiite majority, marched along the eastbound side of Sheikh Khalifa Bin Salman Highway in a wide, unbroken column of red and white, the country’s colors. Men of all ages walked with women and children waving flags and calling for an end to the authoritarian government of King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa.

In a nation of only a half a million citizens, the sheer size of the gathering was astonishing. The protest, organized by the Shiite opposition parties, began in the central Bahrain Mall, two miles from the square and seemed to fill the entire length of the highway between the two points.

Security forces were nowhere to be seen along the demonstration route. The Ministry of the Interior, which has been regularly providing updates on the situation in the capital via its Twitter feed, issued a terse acknowledgment of the protest: “Sheikh Khalifa Bin Salman towards Manama is now closed.”

The protesters streaming into the square on Tuesday joined thousands of others — among them teachers, lawyers and engineers — who have camped out in order to occupy the area after the military pulled out following a deadly crackdown last week. The new arrivals were likely to overflow into the area surrounding the square.

With the army removed, and the police withdrawn under intense pressure from the United States, the Shiite opposition has acted as if it were in a position of strength.

It's pretty funny how on a day when Libya is attacking it's own citizens with weapons Europe provided, the UK Prime Minister is on a tour of the Middle East trying to drum up arms sales with other undemocratic countries.

Xandu posted:

And while Gaddafi was speaking,

I thought that the Bahrain protests might not go anywhere, but this is such a gigantic amount of people given the tiny population of the country. Goddamn. Hopefully things don't go as bad in Bahrain as they did in Libya for the protesters and they oust their government with minimal casualties.

Gravy Jones posted:

He's actually not insane and it's all just a big distraction to keep the world's eyes on him while.... well some kind of evil James Bond villain scheme I guess. Maybe deploying a giant plane crushing fist.

Either way, we're all falling for it.

This is what I was thinking. Until recently, he's been a pretty good/big game player and as a recognized terrorist AND country ruler, managed to stay alive and in power while making money for a pretty long time. I'm amazed by this alone. I'm sure everyone has their breaking point where they just check out and roll down to crazy town, but I would think someone living his life, that threshold would have to be far greater than I can even imagine. I feel like it's important to not underestimate him and maybe he's putting the focus on him so we stop focusing on what we should be watching. In summation I've filed his speech into my mental file of 1.) Crazy or 2.) Wants us to think he's crazy. That fist/plane statue is so hardcore.

I also think it's both hilarious and sad the entire world is watching him come completely unglued without intervening. I think the US gov't is rolling with this strategy: "Nice speech Crazypants. This should work itself out soon....I hope."

I shouldn't have switched over to that US State Dept. briefing. "Um, we are still trying to find out exactly what's going on over there...I think some of our people tried to contact the Libyan government over the weekend..."

Noreaus posted:

I shouldn't have switched over to that US State Dept. briefing. "Um, we are still trying to find out exactly what's going on over there...I think some of our people tried to contact the Libyan government over the weekend..."

lil sartre posted:

I fear for all those migrant workers and emigrants on their way to Europe who might get lynched just because of the colour of their skin.

What a terrible situation. There are definitely African mercenaries, but there are a lot of Libyan citizens who also happen to be black. It's awful to think they're just as fearful of reprisals from Gadaffi, as they are of wanton abuse from an angry and irrational population.

I'm hoping this situation would have ended sooner, but with the country basically cut in half, things do not appear to be ending any time soon. Gadaffi needs to be ended, now.

Nonsense posted:

What a terrible situation. There are definitely African mercenaries, but there are a lot of Libyan citizens who also happen to be black. It's awful to think they're just as fearful of reprisals from Gadaffi, as they are of wanton abuse from an angry and irrational population.

If it makes you feel better, most of the videos from Libya are showing Black Libyans (and I presume, migrant workers as well) as part of the protests, without any visible friction between them and the Arab Libyans.

Evidently, it's become an Egypt-type rising where the different cultural groups have put aside their differences because their leader is just that much of a cockmongler.

Slantedfloors fucked around with this message at Feb 22, 2011 around 19:08

Namarrgon posted:

This is far from all of it though. The whole thing was at least an hour. Does anyone know the real total time or is it still going?

Sorry, I'll update that post as I'm watching unless someone has a more coherent link. There's many more parts to this series of uploads, but 4 and 5 are news commentary and then later parts are pieces of the speech from other news feeds. I'm still trying to figure out if the later parts are just separate captures or other pieces of the speech and what order the pieces go in.

Does anybody know anything about Malta, what would be their procedure for dealing with Libyan forces using their various weapon-craft to defect? Like the pilots who landed in Malta seeking asylum, I know they were detained, but what else occurs?

There is no way his government will survive if officers are defecting with multimillion dollar military equipment. This is not just some grunts refusing to fire on protesters, 2 fighters jets and a military vessel defecting is a huge blow to him. Plus the hilarious gently caress you from Libyan diplomats abroad.